Love (Daya)

With regard to this subject of love, sympathy, compassion, fellow-feeling, pity, upon which rules of conduct must be based, the following are some of the ways in which it can be shown.

One way would be that the person would follow good customs of his family, protecting life. But in this particular form now meant, the internal attitude of mind is not active, and he would not know why it was done.

Another way in which the factor of love, upon which the rules of conduct must be based, can be shown would be a desire for others to develop their spiritual nature. Whereas the way previously mentioned is simply a protecting of the bodily welfare, the way now meant is a desire to protect the soul.

Another way would be pity for one’s own soul that it should have been so long, that is, for all time past, in the deluded and unclean state it was in before reaching the right attitude of mind. And as a consequence of this pity we should remain aloof from pains and pleasures, these being enemies to the blissful quality of the real self.

Another way or form of pity is love for other as the result of thought. Here the thought would be : I do not like pain or misery, and therefore others would not; so I shall endeavor to avoid inflicting pain upon them.

Another form of this quality is the refraining from injuring other living beings because you believe that you will thereby reach a pleasurable condition after death; but this form is only apparently a form of love.

And another form is where good comes as a result but not at the beginning. But if there is any feeling of revenge or hate, then it is not love or pity. If you vindictively tell a person something unpleasant in order to bring him to his senses, it is not love, but it is if there is no feeling of vindictiveness.

There are also two other forms of “daya“, namely, the relative and absolute (vyavahara and niscaya). That is the end of the subject of what the signs of the right attitude of mind are.

With regard to this right attitude and its opposite, the wrong attitude of thought towards the universe, it may be useful here to anticipate the question – why is the one right and the other wrong ?. The answer is only repeating that those Masters who have developed all the potential qualities of the soul, have discovered and taught their discoveries that in man soul and matter are in combination with matter in order to live; not only unnecessary, but that by the combination the natural qualities of the soul are choked up. When in this combination the soul predominates over the matter, then some of the soul’s natural qualities, love, kindness, right convictions, etc., manifest themselves in a degree. And this state where the soul as it were overbalances the foreign forces in us, is what has been called the right attitude as opposed to the state where the matter overbalances the soul and chokes it up so much, which state has been called the wrong attitude or state of delusion, wrong belief etc.